Internally Displaced Adventist

[Gregory Matthews]

The following is the story of the spiritual journey of a SDA woman who is uncertain as to where she fits into the Adventist spectra.

I suspect that many of  us can relate to her journey.

https://conversation.spectrummagazine.org/t/the-journey-of-an-internally-displaced-adventist/15535

I live and work in a sensitive, war-torn part of the world that daily produces refugees and IDPs. IDP stands for “Internally Displaced Person,” someone who is ripped out of a context that feels like “home” while still remaining in his or her country of origin. As a Seventh-day Adventist, sometimes I can feel like an IDA – an “Internally Displaced Adventist.” Let me explain.

 

 

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

sounds like she was in a time warp...  The things she was describing sounds eerily like the SDA church and schools where I was raised back in the late 1950s/early 60s.  Didn't know there were some SDAs groups who still endorsed that sort of rigidness..

the thought comes to me that many SDAs were "coming out of Babylon" when "Babylon" hardly had a population, and now those SDAs haven't a clue about how to relate to anyone not in their social religious clique...  

[CoAspen]

Pam is correct. I understand the authors feelings as there was a time in my past when exactly the same was happening to me. I mostly lived in SDA towns surrounding SDA colleges. Even into the  70's it persisted. Felt like a total fish out of water when moving out of that world. It took years and a chaplain to cross over the bridge completely. 

[GayatfootofCross]

Wow!

My home church was very much like that. I thought that was Christianity. Do this and don't do that.

 

Even members having a T.V. got  flak in church.

I thought If I dared to even to entertain any ideals outside of those old fashion parameters I would be considered dancing with Satan.

It is only cause of the internet I have met SDA Christians who think differently.

I must have met SDA Christians like that (that think differently) earlier in my life but I must have assumed that they thought like i did.. therefore

questioning of restrictions  never came up.

I was very naive as a young man.

...........................

hmmmm... Now that I am thinking back about it ..in my late 30''s I was in very much distress talking to my SS teacher(in the SF area Where I lived for awhile) about how hard it was to get up in the morning real early to spend time with GOD.

and felt so guilty and not Saved on those miserable days (almost everyday).

She asked me when did I spend time with God. I said at night but it wasn't good enough and pointed to some verse or something

She gave me a new/different thought. Maybe the person who wrote that was a morning person.

huh?......

...............................................................

My present church in the hills/forest area still argue about women wearing pants. Location wise we are only less than 45 minutes from my home church.

(tis all connected in the rural areas and everyone knows each other)

My church is dying. The school has closed. No more potlicks every week. Wear your coats in the winter for it is too expensive to heat the church.

No young people. Few families. Members dying.

I think  my partner and I are still considered Missionary Projects.

 They are very kind to us.

The ones that may consider us as Castaways  don't give it voice that I know of.

We wear pants to church.

 

 

 

[Kevin H]

I posted this reply:

I’m sure that many have had your experience to one degree or another. Also, there are not strict walls of separation between the flavors of Adventism. A big part of the problem has been that our pioneers were externally displaced Christians from other churches. They came from a wide background and wanting to prevent what they experienced, they tried to form a church that had only a handful of landmarks, and outside of those, as long as they were not fanatical, they were free to follow the Bible according to the dictates of their conscience.

Our high points have been when we learn to work together and respect each other, a willingness to share information but allow the others to evaluate and to follow the dictates of their conscience. At our low points is when one flavor or another decided that they are the ONLY true version of Adventism and tries to force their views on to everyone else.

Also, as I said above, the walls of the different favors of Adventism are not clear cut. For example you have the label “liberal” which could apply to both those who are more like other evangelical churches, as well a those who question the literal 7 day creation. We have three major views of hell in Seventh-day Adventism (with maybe minor variations). One group believes in the literal fire as what you get with a match or volcano, it’s basically the traditional Catholic/Baptist hell only burning it self out and killing sinners in the process. A second group believes comments like “The Glory of Him that is Love will destroy the wicked” and Isaiah 33 where the righteous burn forever in the eternal fire, and thus sees the fire as the power, beauty, love, and glory of God. When Jesus was on earth people reacted two ways, some found it heaven to be with him, others found it hell to be with him. Thus at the end God treats us all the same. Those who have a relationship with Jesus (However they might understand him while on earth) will find it heaven to be with him. The others find him on the one hand overwhelmingly attractive and their deepest desire is to be with him, but they developed characters that has refused to yield to this desire. They are unforgiving and can’t see how God can forgive them and fear he will get them for their sins that they see in contrast to his purity so they pull back from the only source of life Thus God doing one act makes it either heaven or hell. The third group are the “God does not kill” group, which sees only Satan as killing in the Bible and God being completely passive at the end.

Anyway, those who tend to see God doing two different things at the end, a nice thing to nice people and a bad thing to bad people, are very focused on their legal adjustment. Sees salvation as basically a legal adjustment. About 30 years ago a crisis in the church by a group labeled “Liberals” as well as the “Conservatives” were both agreed that salvation was our legal standing and freaked out about the other views of hell. (then again they refused to admit that the second view of hell existed and classified everyone who did not believe in their view of hell as the God does not kill group.) Even a couple of months ago I wrote about the second understanding of hell in a discussion group with former Adventists in which one reacted with "I find that view of hell deplorable. We all need to know that we are saved by the work of Jesus changing our legal status.

On the other hand those with the second view of hell tend to see how the Investigative Judgment’s role is important in our coming closer to Jesus, and the “conservatives” who would side with the “liberals” on the idea of legal standing would join with us in embracing 1844

I want to encourage you to embrace the picture that our pioneers had of a church with more freedom than other churches, listen, discuss and keep on growing.

[debbym]

there is one boat.  it is planet earth.  we are all in it.  Jesus is the life preserver.  he is keeping everyone alive and if we choose we may consent and accept the personal fitting life preserver so when the boat goes down we can live.   there is no life saving culture....  everyone is equally loved.  we may enjoy privileges of family and spiritual family, but along with that comes the potential of pain, just as when a family break, so when the spiritual family fails us.